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Digital self-harm is associated with disordered eating behaviors in adults

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Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Eating-disorder psychopathology is associated with self-harm behaviors. With much time spent and many social interactions taking place online, self-cyberbullying has emerged as a new form of self-harm that is digital. The current study examined digital self-harm in adults and its associations with eating-disorder psychopathology and behaviors.

Methods

Participants were adults (N = 1794) who completed an online cross-sectional survey. Participants reported whether they had ever posted mean things about themselves online, whether they had ever anonymously bullied themselves online and completed measures of eating-disorder psychopathology and disordered eating behaviors.

Results

Digital self-harm was reported by adults across demographic characteristics and across the lifespan, although there were some significant differences in demographic characteristics associated with reported digital self-harm. Participants who engaged in digital self-harm were younger than those denying digital self-harm. Eating-disorder psychopathology and disordered eating behaviors were significantly higher among individuals reporting digital self-harm compared with age-matched controls.

Conclusions

This was the first study to examine digital self-harm among adults and the first study to examine associations of digital self-harm with eating-disorder psychopathology and disordered eating behaviors. Importantly, digital self-harm is reported by adults and therefore is not limited to youth. Our findings that digital self-harm is associated with disordered eating suggests that digital self-harm is a clinically significant topic that needs further research to inform clinical practice and clinical research.

Level of evidence

Level III, Evidence obtained from well-designed cohort or case-controlled analytic studies.

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Data availability

Data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

This research was supported, in part, by National Institutes of Health grants K23 DK092279 (Dr. Barnes) and K23 DK115893 and UL1 TR001863 (Dr. Lydecker). Funders played no role in the content of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, 301 Cedar Street, New Haven, CT, 06519, USA

    Janet A. Lydecker, Carlos M. Grilo, Antonia Hamilton & Rachel D. Barnes

  2. Health Psychology, Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Rachel D. Barnes

Authors
  1. Janet A. Lydecker
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  2. Carlos M. Grilo
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  3. Antonia Hamilton
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  4. Rachel D. Barnes
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Correspondence to Janet A. Lydecker.

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The authors have no conflicts of interest relevant to this article to disclose.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the university’s institutional review board (Yale University Human Investigations Committee).

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All participants provided informed consent prior to the online survey.

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Lydecker, J.A., Grilo, C.M., Hamilton, A. et al. Digital self-harm is associated with disordered eating behaviors in adults. Eat Weight Disord 27, 2129–2136 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-021-01355-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-021-01355-6

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